TUR member, Angela Rangad today took out a lone dharna outside the gate of the Main Meghalaya Secretariat building to impress upon the State government to release the income support for wage earners of the year 2020 and to announce similar income support for wage earners for 2021 as the COVID19 pandemic has destroyed all daily based livelihood.
The State government had sanctioned Rs. 2100 each for domestic workers, daily wage earners, taxi drivers, hawkers under a scheme called chief Minister’s Relief Against Wage Loss (CRAWL).
Another scheme called Meghalaya Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board had sanctioned Rs. 5000 each to workers registered with MBOCWWB through the state Labour Department.
Beneficiaries were supposed to call or SMS or call or WhatsApp their details to phone numbers announced for the purpose by the government or submit their details through district or block or dorbar shnongs.
The government had said they had spent Rs.52 crore but they spent hardly 50 percent of this to the thousands who had applied.
TUR had filed RTI and the replies revealed a huge discrepancy between the amount claimed to have release to the wage earner applicants and the number of wage earners who had applied but said they did not recieve it.
Rangad said many who applied contacted them after the news of the TUR RTI spread.
“Till today people are calling to say they did not recieve this money or received less than 50 percent of the amount promised”, she said.
Some said they received only Rs. 700 and are still waiting for the rest, she said. “Doesn’t the chief minister and the others realise that people are in deep distress and almost on the verge of starvation,” Rangad underlined.
